Boards›Gameplay

Garen Q balance

Umbral Knight··2 votes·746 views

I will be honest. I hate this champ. Like A LOT. But I have tried to really understand him since I always seem to have issues with him. And I think the one thing that really annoys me the most is how absolutely broken his Q is in regards to MS. I am not even talking about him using it to catch you. I am talking about activating it to run away.

Since Riot has labeled him a juggernaut letting him have an ability that not only allows for catching opponents but also helps him escape is a bit ridiculous.

I think they should make the MS boost his Q gives only apply while moving TOWARDS visible enemies.

This would give him that engage he needs as I have been told repeatedly that if you got rid of the MS completely he would be useless. But it would mean he has to make sure he has a way out instead of just thinking Q will save me.

One of the most annoying parts of his Q is when he sits in a side lane and any one person can't kill him. Your team needs to take at least 2 or more to kill him otherwise he runs heals then keeps pushing that lane. This causes an insane issue for defending teams because you cant just let one guy stop his split cause otherwise that one guy is there forever. Meaning when Garen splits it doesn't give the enemy team any good way to counter that strategy. Either you leave another lane in a 2/3 v 4 or you have one guy top lane at all times making sure Garen doesn't push the lane too far.

"Oh but Teemo counters him so hard!" Ok but then he can ask his team to ban teemo or any other champion that counters him. On top of that if the jungler supports him he can do just fine. On top of that counters in lane is not the big issue. Late game he just is not fun at all to play against. Doesn't matter if your ahead or behind he just creates frustration. Watching him run away and start massively healing all the while you cant get to him cause he built for speed and his Q is practically on all the time is not just annoying it's down right ridiculous. He has a ton of safety with his passive and W and his tank builds give him even more. Having a get away card should not be needed on him.

Keep the slow cleanse. That will still help with some situations like ganks but honestly I see his Q used more to run away than anything else. It doesn't fit the thematic of the ability, a Decisive Strike does not usually mean running away for 30 seconds, or the character as I don't think he would be prone to running away constantly.

And no even when you are ahead and he has been trailing if you can't decisively push for the win he can sit in a lane and push it and be able to escape unless you bring 2-3 people to stop him. So making sure to keep him down doesn't really work unless you can win the game before he gets like 2-3 items one of which is boots.

What are my fellow summoner's thoughts on this?

13 Comments

oSEXYPLATYPUSo1 votes

lol man you would hate me when i use to run MS quints as garen and get boots as 1st item and then get other items that increased his ms and take ghost

Umbral Knight1 votes

Dude I literally threw a monitor once because of someone who built him like that. [slayer-jinx-unamused]

That said that was right after his juggernaut update. I just hate seeing a character Rito said should be "Slow and immobile" Literally outrun like EVERY champ in the game.

oSEXYPLATYPUSo1 votes

or when went hp per 5 quints, armor marks, hp per lvl seals and mr per lvl blues ?

Umbral Knight1 votes

Less angry. Annoying but he is literally the regen champ second only to Mundo. I can handle a tough Garen but fast Garens just literally cause me to boil with fury. :P

oSEXYPLATYPUSo1 votes

get champs that have cc or slow and get items that slow

oSEXYPLATYPUSo2 votes

oh then when DFG was in the game... i used ap garen. with magic pen reds, magic pen quints, armor yellows and cdr blues...

ran summoner 14 summoner 4 and got dfg item 3001 item 3020

TyrekGoldenspear1 votes

He's not that difficult to fight.

As for the Q, it only cleanses slows on activation.

As for hia splitpushing, he is nowhere near as fast as say Trynd, so your team can push down a lane and take an inhibitor while outnumbering the enemy team. This should be easier becuase they will usually be missing a frontline.

That said, he needs his MS or else he'd be useless. And if he runs, go and take the objective you were contesting, or the teamfight you were fighting.

I promise you will make sizable progress before he heals back ip.

Umbral Knight1 votes

Its not about how fast he is in splitpushing. Its how CONSTANT it is. With Tryn he is dangerous with how fast he split pushes, but I have seen him killed and pushed away by only one player. And honestly my issues is how often I watch one or two of my teammates literally chase him across the map only to have him come back and push the lane again. It is frustrating with how easily he just keeps the pressure in one lane.

TyrekGoldenspear1 votes

Well think about it from Garen's perspective.

What on earth should he do instead?

If he runs into the teamfight he will output no meaningful damage save to the villian, and they will likely be just out of his reach while the rest of them ignore his fallen off damage and murder his team followed by him.

He cannot stay back and peel for his carry. He has no CC save for a brief silence.

There is literally nothing he can do late that will make a difference save for his splitpushing capabilites.

And if he runs MS quints, that means he gave up either early damage or early armor. His enemy laner can punish him that much easier.

Danjeng1 votes

Any ranged top laner can deal with Garen easily. But if you're playing melee, he can probably bully you unless you're a juggernaut like him. You probably have more utility and bring more to a team fight than him.

Garen isn't all that strong atm, and more nerfs would just set him back. His late game scaling is a result of him being melee with no ranged abilites or gap closers.

Umbral Knight1 votes

He isn't strong but he is a safe top laner. One thing I do like about him is unless the player is super aggressive I don't have Garen top lanes that feed their opponent heavily. I understand the late game scaling, I have no issue with his survivability in the late game except for the issue of how easily he can outrun almost ANY champ in the game with 2-3 items and MS quints.

Hotaru is Waifu1 votes

garen is annoying early but becomes nothing more than a wall of meat in late

redniwediS1 votes

Garen already had his Q speed and base movement speed nerfed, his primary set of boots nerfed, and has seen his win rate drop steadily because of it. Before Garen could actually escape quite often, but after the nerfs and with the mass amount of slows being thrown about and movement speed on hit items being used he is having a rather difficult time right now.

I'll tell you right now I've mained Garen since I started League back in season 1, and right now is one of the most frustrating times to play him. The last time he felt this weak was back in season 3, and at least back then he had a certain level of reliability to fall back on.

His Q is currently one of his weaker abilities because of things I already mentioned. He has always been fast, but he is being forced into a Juggernaut role right now. They took his speed away and didn't compensate him enough to put him on par with other Juggernauts. He had a nice spike to his win rate right after the Juggernaut update, but that's simply because his E damage got a huge boost. That along with his old movement speed was honestly too strong. The 33% damage nerf when hitting multiple targets helped, but then the movement speed nerfs happened. Then boot enchantments were removed, and boots of swiftness got hit.

Now an ADC with trinity force and upgraded boots can keep up with me when I have movement speed quints, boots of swiftness, and my Q. Please trust me when I say the movement speed boost of Garen's Q is not the problem with his kit. If you want the real problem look at where a lot of his reliability got siphoned into... (hint hint villain passive nonsense)

I'll admit there are times when Garen can get ahead and become an absolute menace, but this is not the norm. If it's the norm for you then you are doing something that allows Garen to get this way. It's a whole lot easier to fix what you are doing wrong than it is to change the champion you have a problem with after all, and there are many helpful Garen mains on the boards who would gladly assist you.

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